infrastructure

He’s one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Kansas residents and public officials waiting for the state to solve its money problems so that dozens of highway projects that have been indefinitely delayed can get going again.

City Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to increase the drainage fee rate for all Wichita customers, with residents bearing more of the cost increase.

Right now, all customers are charged $2 per month, with commercial property owners paying an additional fee based on their amount impervious surface -- property where water can't soak into the ground. The new system will charge a base rate of $1.50 per month, and begin charging residents based on actual square footage of impervious surface.

A sales tax referendum on last November’s ballot would’ve put an estimated $27.8 million dollars towards street repairs in Wichita. The referendum was defeated, but the cracks and potholes remain. KMUW’s Sean Sandefur takes a driving tour of some of the city’s worst roads and has this report…

When you map out the streets that would have received a bit of TLC from the defeated sales tax, you see whole neighborhoods that are crisscrossed with course, uneven asphalt and concrete.

Belmont Street, from Pawnee to Kinkaid in southwest Wichita, is about as bad as it gets.

A new EPA report to Congress says the nation's drinking water infrastructure will need $384 billion dollars worth of improvements over the next 20 years, including more than $4 billion in Kansas.

William Carr manages the revolving loan fund that finances drinking water projects in Kansas. He says most of the projects on the list are for transmission and distribution, especially the underground pipes that carry water to homes and businesses.